What’s the story on Stories?

If you are a fan of social media, you’ve no doubt noticed that “Stories” have taken apps to a whole new level.

This app addition became popular after it was first introduced by Snapchat in 2013. It gave users the option to share their content with all their followers through a single upload that could be seen on the Stories page of the app. Unlike direct snapchats that are only available for up to 10 seconds, these Stories can be viewed an unlimited number of times for up to 24 hours. Stories can also be paired with a variety of other elements such as:

lenses

geofilters

stickers

text

emojis

Bitmoji avatars

Snapchat also added featured Stories from outlets such as CNN, Cosmopolitan, Daily Mail and Buzzfeed that allowed users to view articles, news reports and video clips simply by visiting the Stories page.

But just how far is this Stories trend going to go? When will users lose interest?

In 2016, Instagram also released an update that gave users the opportunity to do essentially the same thing. Users could take a photo, video or even connect to the Boomerang app and post their content as a public story, for their followers to view an unlimited number of times over a period of 24 hours. Instagram’s Stories feature was initially described as a shameless form of copying Snapchat’s ideas but legally, Instagram was within their rights.

Their rendition of this feature has been extremely successful. According to TechChat, by early 2017, Instagram had accumulated about 150 million daily active users, the same amount of daily active users as Snapchat reported having as of June of 2016.

However, while Instagram and Snapchat have had remarkable success with the Stories, you might be surprised by which powerhouse app, despite its efforts, isn’t leaving the same mark on social media history: Facebook

This year, Facebook launched their own in-app version of Stories. While the Facebook Stories feature is similar to that of Snapchat and Instagram, users have been labeling it an overall failure. It’s no secret that Facebook has tried to take over Snapchat before, but the fact that yet another app has added the same feature has users asking, “When will it end?”

In an effort to encourage more users to try out Stories, Facebook has already had to redesign the feature to show “ghost” postings, regardless of whether or not that person has posted a Story, in hopes that users will see them at the top of the app and want to join in.

(The Verge)

The confusion why so many apps are adding their own version of Stories has even caused a meme craze labeled “Will Now Have Stories” meme.

While Stories have proven that they have their place in branding, marketing, public relations and many other areas of business, it seems that the use of them in so many social media outlets is simply too much.

Do you have a favorite app that features Stories? If so, let HBI know your thoughts on this feature and how you have used it in the world of communication!